In certain applications it is desirable to encode a video sequence such that the compressed video does not exceed a given bitrate. For example, it may be that the compressed video is to be transmitted over a transmission interface having a limited transmission bitrate, or having an output buffer on the transmission side and/or an input buffer on the receive side of limited size.
The bitrate of the compressed video can be adjusted by controlling the compression rate applied by the encoding algorithm. However, existing solutions for controlling the compression rate tend to be complex, slow and/or not capable of achieving a desired bitrate while also maintaining a high video quality.
There is thus a need in the art for a video encoder and method of video encoding that permits the compression rate to be controlled in a simple and efficient manner, while maintaining a high video quality.